The
statements must have indicated you something by now. “The much
hyped rivalry between Englishmen and Australians”. And Ashes
Tournament comes out to be a live witness.

The
Ashes Tournament has its roots deeply embedded in the soil of
Cricketing History.

It
is a form of test cricket played between England and Australia. There
have been several games seen on the field of cricket- some
well-contested and some one-sided hopelessly played. You name it
dominance or gentleman spirit, nothing stands close to the reputation
of Ashes. Such tournaments remain the highlight of the year with
respect to their growing popularity and class cricket.

Trapped
by our life’s hectic schedules, don’t we often miss out on some
of the exciting ventures that we have been planning since long! It
could vary from taking out time arranging tickets for Ashes to
experiencing the gentleman’s game ‘live’. But today many
resources have come up which allows you to stay in touch with your
planned ventures wherever you go. Off late, a few good apps got
launched on Ashes Test and have said to arrive the stores of ‘much
talked about’ platforms- Android and iOS.

‘Go
Ashes’ , ‘ECBCricket’ and ‘The Ashes’ are such few apps
that carry all the useful information about such an event.

ECB
Cricket:

ECB
Cricket is a beautifully crafted app, yet full of desired
information. This app is meant for the easy accessing of news scores,
matches and updates. From the tickets of ongoing Ashes to updates on
forthcoming tournaments, from match highlights to choosing a cricket
wallpaper, from scoreboard to the fall of wickets, you will get them
ALL.

It’s
USP is that it comes on four platforms- Apple, Blackberry, Nokia and
Android whilst the cost comes out to be absolutely free.

Go
Ashes:

Designed
for both iPhone and iPad, Go Ashes acts as a perfect companion during
your tour to the Tournament. It has a feature by an interesting name
“Twickets”. It organizes all your Ashes twitter feeds at one
place. Others include live scoring, series overview and history and
news feeds w.r.t. both the teams.

Its
makers say that “It is a must have for any visitor to Australia! “.
Besides (in the app) you get food and drink suggestions to all the
Ashes host cities.

The
Ashes:

The
Ashes is another commendable app on Google Play. It endows users with
the latest information on the ongoing tournament. Here, all the
content is powered by ‘The Telegraph’. This app has a simplified
approach towards reporting on the Ashes and other cricket info.

All
all, these apps are more fruitful & perfect to those having
minimal time with no-fuss approach. Blessed with video content, live
blogs, squad profile, photo galleries; they are match and news
focused. Other apps in the line are Yahoo Cricket, Crickbuzz Cricket
Scores & News, ICC Cricket and Cricket Companion App.

Sunday, 3 November 2013

At the age of 12, I saw my neighbors fly to Johannesburg, South Africa to watch soccer and I thought how cool would it be to go there one day and watch soccer? And here I am. Initially I got into it for the thrill but recently discovered a different side of watching sports.. Touring. And so this blog exists to document my sports fanatics’ adventures.

Here is the postmortem of my epic 14 day adventure from California to Johannesburg and back. Lets start off with how I planned my trip. We all know planning a trip is not easy. You need to decide the place, look at the cost of traveling, estimate your budget, book your tickets and lodging. When you wanna go to a place to watch your favorite sports, you gotta know each and every detail of that place, every bit of information. And if we go about it the traditional way, googling each and every venue, it indeed is a Herculean task. I opted for a smarter approach (I possess a smartphone, you see). I picked an app called ED Sports Fanatics, which facilitated me with all the essentials.

ED Sports Fanatics let’s you create your perfect visit to the sports venues using smart data and maps. Touch the map to explore places where your favorite sports are played. It never allows you to get lost in way. It carves perfectly clear routes to get to the sports venue, which is why I was able to cover most of the places I planned to visit.

The app contains rich information on world-class sports venues including stadiums, arenas, tracks, grand prix circuits, motor bike circuits and many more. It covers almost all the places and cities like London, France, Sydney, New York, Spain, Melbourne, Munich, Johannesburg, etc. around the globe. Knowing about sports venues in Johannesburg was fun with ED Sports Fanatics.

My first destination was FNB Stadium (First National Stadium) also known as Soccer City to watch a thrilling soccer match between South Africa and Mexico. Next in Johannesburg was Wanderers Stadium, where we dropped in to watch cricket match between South Africa and England. The cricket match had a nail-biting finish!

Won't annoy you with more details.

The whole experience during the trip was fascinating and I recorded my experience with ED Sports Fanatics. This app offers features like NOTES and JOURNAL. With ‘Notes’ you can share your own travel experience and with ‘Journal’ you can save day-to-day travel experience. I am glad to stumble upon this App.